Navigating the Fog of Uncertainty
The Inspiration Point for My Leadership Journey
What if the most dangerous thing to your career is not failure, but uncertainty?
When I first joined Adobe, I knew how to design, successfully pitch ideas, and deliver at a high bar of quality. But I didn't know what it meant to be successful as a leader — in a moment where clarity has become the rarest commodity in corporate life.
There was no roadmap. No clear definition of my role at any level, no shared understanding of what success looked like, and no obvious path forward to keep growing. I could see where I wanted the work to go, but I couldn't see how I was supposed to get there — or how I was expected to take others with me.
This wasn't just my personal struggle. Talking candidly with colleagues across different levels and companies, I realized we were all caught in the same fog of uncertainty. Managers and individual contributors alike, everyone seemed to be winging it — hoping they were doing the right thing, waiting for that stroke of luck that might bring visibility to their project and advance their career.
The modern workplace has transformed uncertainty into a strange kind of strategy: keep things just vague enough that no one can definitively say you're doing anything wrong.
That kind of ambiguity can wear you down. It can make you question the value of your contribution, wonder if you're focused on the right things, and leave you anxious in the face of constant pressure to deliver. The modern workplace has transformed uncertainty into a strange kind of strategy: keep things just vague enough that no one can definitively say you're doing anything wrong.
The emotional toll was constant. Was I delivering up to others' expectations? Did I truly understand what I should be doing? Should I keep doing the same thing forever? How do I grow? Who are the people I can look up to when everyone seems equally uncertain?
Was I delivering up to others' expectations? Did I truly understand what I should be doing? Should I keep doing the same thing forever?
I could have waited. Waited for someone to hand me a map, waited for clarity to magically appear, waited for someone else to define my path. Instead, I had to push through that fog of uncertainty, to find the resources that would help me define my own trajectory if no one else was going to do it.
I was fortunate. Some managers were proactive — helping me define my role and communicate it to our team. Advocates put me in positions to succeed. Mentors showed me how to document and tell my own story. But these were exceptions, not the rule.
So I started doing what I've done my whole career: asking questions, paying attention to leaders I respected, borrowing the best practices I saw in other teams and companies. And slowly, I began to realize the missing ingredient — for me, my team, and my organization — was clarity.
Clarity in what was expected of each of us. Clarity in what success actually meant. Clarity in how to grow from here.
I didn't know it yet, but that realization would become the foundation for everything I built going forward — from the way I design my team’s charter, to hiring for the skills and chemistry we need, and to setting us up to become a self-sustaining team.
That's where this series begins: with more than a decade spent navigating a corporate landscape that often seems designed to keep its inhabitants perpetually uncertain — and the hard-won clarity that shaped the leader I am today.
What About You?
Have you felt trapped in this fog of professional uncertainty? What's your strategy for creating clarity when the system seems designed to keep you guessing?
Next in the series: The Turning Point — From Vision to Leadership.